Hello everyone. I’m still here. It’s spring, and I’ve decided to come out of hibernation. Just the other day the temperature went up over 10C and I swear I felt a kind of sap surging in my veins. I’m alive! It’s warm! I feel the sun on my face! I have decided, however, to adopt a new blogging style. Short. Sweet. To the point. No more ramblings from one topic to another. That’s a real challenge for me, because I find so many things interesting, and I want to share them all with everyone. I guess that means I’ll need to post more things, then, if I limit myself to one topic per post. Today it’s poetry. I happened to visit Brainpickings, Maria Popov’s brilliant blog, and read a fascinating article about a woman named Nina Katchadourian, who photographs the spines of books arranged to make sentences and poems. It click here to read the whole dang post […]

After a discussion about books and publishing at the monthly meeting of my writing group, my friend, fellow writer and book designer extraordinaire Sue Niewiarowski forwarded this video to the group. It captures the whole issue I wrote about last week much better than I did. Hilarious! I do believe we will evolve into the world of new media.

About Gydle

Gydle is a niche-free blog about things I find interesting that I think just might interest you, too. That usually means science, philosophy, writing and running. The word "Gydle" isn't in the dictionary, but it does have personal meaning. I'll reveal that later.

About me

My name isn't Gydle, really. It's Mary. I'm a regular person, married with kids, and I mostly read, write, translate, run and, now that I'm in Vancouver, do yoga. You can e-mail me at gydleblog (@) gmail (dot) com .

Oldies but goodies

Happy Thanksgiving, Gydle people! One of my favorite blogs, Gone Floatabout, written by friends with a serious sailing affliction and unparalleled wizardry with a camera, mentioned that some of the blogs they followed are posting the 50 things they’re most thankful for this year. Seems like a good idea. After all, it has been scientifically shown that being grateful is good for your health. One of the most popular TED talks of all time is by a super-smiley guy named Shawn Achor. He says that if you spend just a few minutes a day thinking of just three things you’re grateful for, you’ll be much happier. Imagine how you’d feel after listing fifty!

It has been a while since I’ve used this space to educate you about the incredibleness of the microbiome and the looming bacterial takeover of the planet. But the mainstream media is fully on board with this, so there has been plenty out there for you to chew on. Everyone is talking about the microbiome these days. If you’re not taking probiotics, you’re probably eating sauerkraut and swilling kombucha. I know I am. In fact, I have a huge vat of kombucha brewing on my kitchen counter at this very moment. Did you know the slimy opaque thing growing on top of your kombucha is called a SCOBY, which is an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast? Since when does a little non-word like “of” get its very own letter in an acronym? But I digress.

… 0r a walk, this applies to both. In order of importance: Because you can. You have two legs and springy Achilles tendons for a reason: humans are built for running. If you don’t believe me, go read Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall. Seriously, a fully functional cardiovascular/respiratory/skeletal system is a friggin’ miracle and you should get off your ass and go celebrate that ASAP. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, why are you reading this post? BTW, we are not built for triathlons, or our genitals wouldn’t be where they are and we’d have webbed feet and hands. Just saying. Because it gets you outdoors. Notice that my title says “go out and run.” Treadmills are for hamsters. Scared of a little rain? Heat? Lightning? Dark? Come on. It’s not that bad. Too many people live indoor lives — bed-table-car-desk-car-table-couch-bed. Get out there and breathe click here to read the whole dang post […]

Think for a minute: When was your last existential crisis? Who, me? you say. Existential crisis? I don’t have existential crises. I’m a rational thinker. I’m practically an engineer. I think everybody has existential crises, whether we recognize them as such or not. They’re in the high points, in the low points, in the situations that push you over an edge into a new thing. They’re moments in which you get a glimpse of the uncertainty at the very root of everything that is, and wonder about what your place in it could possibly be. You, this little wad of flesh and bone and bacteria.

Hello, December. What happened to November? All of October I was busy with the Yoga Project, happily scribing away my impressions, downward-dogging my way into a new yoga comfort zone. And then it seemed that November just floated right on by. And then yesterday, December 1, I opened the New York Times (oh joy) and I realized that I had been subconsciously working on a blog post for the entire month. It’s long, but I hope you still read it. I’ll call it the One Body Problem. Which is this: We only get one body. This is it. You get the body you were born with, like it or not. And then you die.

Greetings from hibernation nation. I did say I’d come out if something really big happened. Guess what? One of my current scientific obsessions was Big News today! No, don’t go away – it’s not the microbiome. It’s my other obsession: junk DNA. I’ve written about it before, here and here and here. In a stunning “no doh?” development, a vast international array of researchers has discovered that the 99% of the human genome that was considered “useless junk” isn’t junk after all.

Wow. It looks like I should turn this into a running blog, if the number of page views I got from that last post is any indication. Thanks for stopping by! Or maybe people just liked the image of me as a marmot. I ran twice this weekend – and both times I was clobbered with inclement weather. On Saturday I finished a long run in a cold rain, with salty water running down my forehead and into my mouth. After a run like that, a warm shower is such a comforting thing. Today I ran with a friend, and we were pummeled with hail for about ten minutes. We had a headwind, and it hurt. I pulled the collar of my fleece jacket up around my face to protect myself. By mile four, the sun had come out, my jacket was around my waist, and we were watching the click here to read the whole dang post […]

Today is world sleep day. In celebration, I urge you all to drop everything and take a nap. As I mentioned back in April last year, research has shown that getting 8 hours of sleep a night is important for optimal cognitive function. We all know how crappy we feel when we’re sleep-deprived. Brain fuzz takes over. We start to yawn uncontrollably in an effort to oxygenate our exhausted neurons. Our eyes start hurting and feeling dry, prompting us to rub them for relief. Every horizontal surface starts to look attractive. But there is a lot more to it than just feeling lousy.

As I stand in the Lausanne train station holding a sign saying “Marcel,” the volume of passengers from platform 8 dwindles from a steady flow to a trickle to a stop. He probably exited the other end of the platform. I stay put like you’re supposed to when you’re lost. He was the 20-something computer geek. I’d let him find me. Sure enough, a few minutes later, he does. This amiable, t-shirt-clad student has come all the way from Zurich after his 8:00 class at ETH to show me how to play a protein folding game called FoldIt. The IT dude in my novel is a player, so I have to learn it, too. In EPFL’s Rolex Learning Center a half hour later, we quickly download the game onto my Macbook, since his HP is bugging, and he logs into his account. A list of protein puzzles appears, with names click here to read the whole dang post […]

Bonjour! (Kiss, kiss, kiss)* Hey! (hug) Hello. Nice to meet you. (right hand extended, waist level) * language and number of kisses may vary These appear to be the accepted Western greeting rituals. But which to use? With whom? When? And how are they properly executed? It’s no big deal until you screw it up. One moment is all it takes to go from potentially interesting person to totally awkward inept proto-caveman. That first impression is everything, right? As an expat, this issue comes up frequently. Take the first time I delivered Brendan to the carpool point for his out-of-village soccer match, the year we were here on sabbatical. Turns out this was not a simple drop-off. Oh, no. People pulled up in their cars and then got out. The kids went around the whole parking lot kissing everybody – kiss, kiss, kiss. Left cheek, right cheek, left cheek. The click here to read the whole dang post […]